Handbook of Tyranny

Handbook of Tyranny portrays the routine cruelties of the twenty-first century through a series of detailed non-fictional graphic illustrations. None of these cruelties represent extraordinary violence — they reflect day-to-day implementation of laws and regulations around the globe.

Every page of the book questions our current world of walls and fences, police tactics and prison cells, crowd control and refugee camps. The dry and factual style of storytelling through technical drawings is the graphic equivalent to bureaucratic rigidity born of laws and regulations. The level of detail depicted in the illustrations of the book mirror the repressive efforts taken by authorities around the globe.

The twenty-first century shows a general striving for an ever more regulated and protective society. Yet the scale of authoritarian intervention and their stealth design adds to the growing difficulty of linking cause and effect. Handbook of Tyranny gives a profound insight into the relationship between political power, territoriality and systematic cruelties.

This new edition includes updated figures and eight additional pages.

About the Author:

Theo Deutinger (*1971) is an architect, writer and curator. He is the founder and head of The Department (TD), a practice that combines architecture with research, visualization and artistic thinking. With TD he works at all scales from global planning, spatial master plans, architecture to graphic and curatorial work. Deutinger is known for his theoretical writings on the transformation of European urban culture, and his socio-cultural studies such as the “Handbook of Tyranny.” His work has been shown at the Design Biennale Kwangju (2011), the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale (2014) and the Storefront for Architecture in New York (2019), among others. Theo Deutinger lives and works in Austria.